40th

Anniversary of philantropy

In search of the first Americans<span>Arturo González</span>

2008 Associate Laureate, Exploration

Arturo González’s expeditions through the flooded labyrinths far beneath the jungle covering Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula are shedding light on the origins of the Americas and challenging traditional theories about its earliest inhabitants.

LocationMexico

As an inhabitant of the Americas, I’m interested in knowing who these people were, where they came from, and when their first steps in the Americas occurred.

Mexican biologist and underwater archaeologist Arturo González is helping to reassess American prehistory by recovering evidence that humans lived in the Yucatán Peninsula region before sea levels rose in the last Ice Age and inundated
local caves.<br><br>Skeletons found in the caves by González are possibly older than any other human remains in the Americas. One has been estimated by three foreign laboratories to be more than 11,600 years old and bears
no resemblance to the Maya who came to dominate the region thousands of years later. If anything, according to González, the newly discovered skeletons have a cranial morphology resembling that of people in eastern Asia.<br><br>The
findings are forcing the scientific community to rethink its theories about when and how early humans travelled to the Americas. The relics González and his team of specialists have discovered in the caves and the resulting research
have been displayed in the Maya Museum of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History in Cancún, as well as in many other Mexican museums.<br><br>His work has been the subject of more than 60 articles in magazines.

11,600 yearsEstimated age of one of the skeletons discovered by González

10,000 - 60,000Age range of fossils retrieved by González and his colleagues, including those of extinct camelids, giant armadillos and horses, from Yucatán’s caverns

Keep exploring

Discover other inspiring Laureates and their innovative projects that are changing the world.